Rajdeep Sardesai, Editor-in-Chief, IBN Network, has been unanimously been elected as President of Editors’ Guild of India. Sardesai is the first ever TV editor to be elected to this post and he takes over from Alok Mehta, Editor, Naidunia Delhi.

After the election Rajdeep revealed his agenda as the Guild President, and said, “I have a five-point agenda to develop synergy amongst print, television and the Internet.”

A speach by Rupert Murdoch entitled “The Future of Newspapers: Moving Beyond Dead Trees,” has been relayed nationally by the Australian Broadcasting Company recently. In the speach News told that News Corp’s Chairman and Chief executive told that Newspapers will survive and thrive in the 21st Century.

Internet is a new market that needs to be taken advantage of. Internet offers opportunities. But it is throwing challenges to the newspaper industry.

Iran Government closed a prominent reformist weekly. The weekly was criticising the policies of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad quite often.

Iran’s Press Supervisory Board sent a letter on 08 November, Saturday to the Shahrvand-e Emrouz (Today’s Citizen) weekly formally informing it of the decision.

Recently the Weekly carried an editorial with a heading “Why does Iran not have an Obama?” This irritating editorial was the reason for the closure.

Another interesting information from Iran is that, Since 2000, the Press Supervisory Board and Iranian courts have closed some 100 publications condemning many as “pawns of the West” and accusing them of trying to undermine Iran’s system of clerical rule.

The Media Research User’s Council (MRUC) has released the Indian Readership Survey 2008 R2 data. In an industry meet on November 4, 2008. The data would be available with all players for their individual analysis on November 5, 2008.

The MRUC did share the numbers of the top players in the various reported languages, further divided in dailies and magazines.

Magazine readership has come down. But still India Today it the highest read magazine. For me it a surprise!!

Malayala Manorama and Mathrubhumi lead among Malayalam publications. Though they have both declined and are now 121.8 lakh and 97.1 lakh, respectively.

If the change from film to digital was the equivalent of a magnitude 5 earthquake, the changes to photography in the next 10 years will be equivalent of a magnitude 10.

The Digital Journalist, the monthly online magazine for visual journalism, has been predicting many of these changes for the past 10 years. In 1997 we stated that the days of the use of film were coming to an end. We also said that in the future photojournalists would no longer be shooting still pictures, but instead would be using video as their prime medium of acquisition.

John Rung, publisher of the Northwest Herald/NorthWest News Group (US) recently gave his ideas on what newspapers can do to avoid being crushed by new media: invest, partner, and simplify. Read more in Editor and Publisher.

Children from Haiderpur and Lal Quan – two slums of Delhi – have taken initiative to launch their own media and raise issues of local concern.

The idea is influencing the decision makers for their well being. Gandhi Smriti Darshan trained children in basic Journalsm. Haiderpur Darpan, is a wall newspaper under the Editorship of Rajeshwari a class XII student. Read the complete story in Hindustan Times